One of the great diplomatic challenges facing
underground rockers in the mid-'80s was how to repeal the
punk era's edict against guitar heroics (which actually did
nothing to undercut the instrument's hegemony, except to
shelve it for a brief synth-pop sabbatical) without raising
suspicions of cultural revisionism or unseemly nostalgia.
In a gambit that proved useful for other iconoclast
conundrums of burning desire for things deemed uncool (like
major-label funding or vast commercial success), Amherst,
Massachusetts, guitarist and singer J (Joseph) Mascis hit
upon a solution. (In the shadow of Sonic Youth, who
themselves were wrapped in a curtain of radical anti-rock
experimentalism, he wasn't the only or even the first one.
But he did become the famous and influential archetype that
explained, if not excused, all the subsequent claimants.)
Mascis, a genuine introvert and slacker at heart, simply
turned the toddler's I-didn't-do-it denial into an indolent
I-didn't-know-I-was-doin'-nothin' shrug, sending up woolly
clouds of stun volume and careless distortion that couldn't
possibly indicate any personal effort or conscious
responsibility. That he's neither a traditional nor a good
lead guitarist (he's actually a hopeless Neil Young wanna-
be) and that he can't sing for shit above an enervated
mumble/whine backs up the implicit contention of amateurism
run amok. That he's kept his process slow and steady, helps
out cool bands and is capable of sputtering out a
monumental pop song now and then has sustained Mascis as a
primo indie-rock god, a prominent lead guitarist in a genre
that doesn't generally need or tolerate such overt
wankery.

These masters of high-decibel manipulation at one time
had difficulty playing more than a single gig per club
because of their ear-damaging attack. Prior to forming
Dinosaur, J Mascis (originally a drummer) and bassist Lou
Barlow played together in Deep Wound (featured on the 1984
Conflict compilation Bands That Could Be God);
Mascis switched to guitar and recruited drummer Murph
(Patrick Murphy), formerly of All White Jury, to form a new
group.

Dinosaur finds the trio sounding like ten
different bands on as many songs. Mascis, also the primary
singer and songwriter, employs an array of electronic
devices to squeeze a myriad of variations from harmonic
structures, utilizing a variety of tones from loud to
louder to loudest. Meat Puppets, Neil Young and Sonic Youth
comparisons are inevitable, but Dinosaur's raucous
individuality is beyond dispute. After legal threats from
the West Coast summer-of-love vets calling themselves the
Dinosaurs, Dinosaur politely became Dinosaur Jr.

The band further reduced its already minimal pop factor
on the deafening You're Living All Over Me, which
was briefly issued under the original name and then given
its Jr for full-scale release. A brilliant, brutal
hailstorm of hyper-distorted riffs and pulverizing
basslines, it's harder, louder and meaner than nine out of
ten heavy metal albums. The multi-sectioned songs change
direction so frequently that it's hard to tell them apart,
as the power-trio assault is modulated by graceful, looming
melodies that rise like mist out of the pedal-mess. The
monolithic album is marred only by Barlow's self-
indulgent "Poledo." (The CD adds a tone-deaf B-side
rendition of Peter Frampton's "Show Me the Way," proof that
any cultural atrocity is admissible so long as it's
accorded full disrespect.)

Bug was preceded by "Freak Scene," one of J's
greatest pop songs and an enduring indie single  the
band's bruising delivery of such an accessible melody is
half of its enormous appeal. Largely a continuation and
expansion upon Living, Bug wanders into
folkier pastures with the lilting "Pond Song" and
experiments with primal scream on the electric axe-murder
of "Don't," a lease-breaker if ever there was one. The
album was followed by yet another ironic single, this time
a cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" (which fits
Dinosaur Jr's style perfectly) and two rough B-sides.

Barlow left to concentrate on Sebadoh, and Dinosaur Jr
increasingly became the J Mascis Experience. An attempt at
an indie-rock supergroup pairing J and Murph with Don
Fleming and Jay Spiegel fell apart almost as soon as it was
announced (although the ex-B.A.L.L.istics did play on "The
Wagon"), and Mascis distracted himself for months with the
Velvet Monkeys and Gobblehoof (on whose debut EP he played
drums). SST gathered up its Dinosaur Jr A- and B-sides and
issued the eight-song Fossils, which is actually a
useful compendium of the early years' most colorful
souvenirs: "Freak Scene," "Show Me the Way," a cover of the
Cure's "Just Like Heaven," Living's "Little Fury
Things."

When Mascis returned nearly three years later, he was
signed to a major label and, like Evan Dando, recording
essentially as a solo artist but using a group name. The
clear-sounding Green Mind has a surprising measure
of propulsive energy and acoustic-guitar diversity (which
underscores the Neil Young resemblance), and sets Dinosaur
Jr tradition by kicking off with a great single, "The
Wagon," the inevitable follow-up to "Freak Scene." The
pickings after that, however, are slim. "Water"
and "Green Mind" are the only genuinely memorable items in
a lackluster bunch; Mascis seems to have expended all his
creative energy in learning the syncopated beat of "Muck"
and inflating the leaky atmospheric tire that
supports "Thumb," which parts previously uncharted waters
in the realm of hypnoriff (live dates in early '91
deputised Screaming Trees bassist Van Conner to stunning
effect). More than a lazy sound, Green Mind
is the sound of laziness.

Accurately billed as "one new single and 7 B sides,"
Whatever's Cool With Me again starts out fine, with
the engaging titular ode to apathy, sung in a just-woke-up
croak at a relatively rousing tempo. With one exception,
the rest is expendable sliding right on through to awful.
Long concert versions of "Thumb" and the older "Keep the
Glove" are sloppy and boring; the non-LP studio tracks
 all cut strictly solo, four of them previously used
on the British 12-inch of "The Wagon"  slapdash and
sung in various states of tuneless disrepair. Only the
brisk and tight "Not You Again," in which Mascis marvels
woefully at "the mess I made again...how do I do it?,"
displays the kind of small effort it takes to elevate slack
rubbish into slacker art.

The same minimal exertion describes Mascis' 15 minutes'
worth of generic contributions to the score of Gas Food
Lodging: short, pleasant, simple and restrained song-
sketch exercises on acoustic and electric guitar, piano,
bass and drums. The rest of the album (co-credited to Barry
Adamson, but featuring tracks by Victoria Williams, Nick
Cave, Renegade Soundwave and the Velvet Monkeys) is far
more accomplished.

Whether Mascis' resumption of the recording process as a
collective band effort (with bassist Mike Johnson and
Murph) explains the great leap forward of Where You
Been or is merely coincidental with a sudden upturn in
his creative ambition, the bottom line is that it's the
first Dinosaur Jr album that doesn't hinge on sensory
overload as its primary selling point. Initiative elevates
and articulates material that, in the past, might have been
left to moulder under a burial pyre of thoughtless
distortion. There's still plenty of fuzzed-out squalling,
but that's only one facet of a more rounded effort. The ten-
track campaign is characterized by concerted craft, solid
songwriting (the standouts are "Start Choppin," "On the
Way" and "Get Me," none of them in the pole position) and
credible (if creaky) singing. A winsome falsetto, string
quartet, piano and tympani increases the Neil Young
resemblance of "Not the Same"; the vocal arrangement,
acoustic picking and organ bed of "Goin' Home" and the
violins on "What Else Is New" are all useful innovative
touches. Although Dinosaur Jr remains an odd diversion
demanding tolerance and indulgence, Where You Been
extends itself as Mascis never before has.

And may never again. Without a Sound, recorded as
a duo with Johnson, demonstrates that making peace with old
bugbears like accurate singing and considered instrumental
complexity is no substitute for inspiration, which seems to
have gone missing. Imperceptibly easing off the
accelerator, Mascis allows the creative tension to go
slack, allowing nearly good songs to pass by like gray-
suited paraders with hangovers. The sheepish recriminations
of "Yeah Right" (with Thalia Zedek of Come singing along)
head past repetition to the ledge of self-parody. Acoustic-
based arrangements frame "Outta Hand" and "Seemed Like the
Thing to Do" to good effect, but only the latter, a simple
refrain repeated endlessly, manages to scratch an
irritatingly gentle message into the mental bark. "I feel
the pain of everyone / Later I feel nothing," Mascis sings
in the leadoff "Feel the Pain" (which has half a hook
leading into the chorus and nothing else to recommend it).
Point taken. Having completely mastered the art of surging
guitar-powered backdrops for his twinned lazy/high vocals,
Mascis makes a consistently friendly noise whose pleasing
effect doesn't last as long as the album. No gain, no
pain.

Considering that Mascis is unlikely to ever be mistaken
for a singer, it's worrisome to hear what a crummy
guitarist he is. Recorded on a '95 solo acoustic tour,
Martin + Me runs through a dubious assortment of
Dinosaur Jr oldies ("Get Me" and "Not You Again," but
also "Thumb," "Goin' Home," "Drawerings" and other minor
album cuts) and a quartet of diverse covers (songs by the
Smiths, Wipers, Carly Simon amd Lynyrd Skynyrd) with the
nimble fingers of a frostbite victim. Strumming badly with
a wavering sense of rhythm, picking fills like a three-
lesson amateur who forgot to practice, and generally
showing less than no care or concern, Mascis could just as
well be any no-talent singing these songs  but he's
not. There's a lesson about fame and flimsiness in here
someplace but it would be too much work to try and think
what it might be.

Swish is Murph's trio with singer/bassist Lori Martin
and guitarist Joe Boyle. Led by Martin's flexible voice and
personal, provocative songs, Supermax (produced and
released by Don Fleming) is a strong, tuneful and diverse
seven-song debut, in line with various Northeastern bands
 other than Murph's alma pater.